


a mountain wrapped in cotton

by aortaxx



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Marvel RarePair Exchange, Post-Endgame, Spoilers!, Tacos, don't ask how i came to this ship but i am here to Stay, only shippy if you want it to be, yeah basically rhodey-centered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-18 01:52:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18976282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aortaxx/pseuds/aortaxx
Summary: set post-endgame!!! rhodey hates how happy scott lang is... until he gets to be (even just a small) part of it and he understands a little more





	a mountain wrapped in cotton

**Author's Note:**

> uuuuuh yeah idrk how i got here? i mean to write a sequel to my other story, but instead i met with these two... idk i think their dynamic has potential and can be interesting to explore, especially post-endgame! so just take this as whatever you want it to be, wether it's shippy or just a general friendship fic (also i recommend listen to seventeen OR miserable america by kevin abstract for maximum effect while reading)

James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes has seen humanity’s most primate and carnal side, in war and outside of it— but if you ask him, he would tell you it only hardened him and never changed him, that he was brought into this world fighting. He had become good at it and even when the world beat him down, here he was, stuck at a therapy centre in the middle of Brooklyn again. It never got easier, he finds though. Because even if his legs feel lighter and his bones scream less, his heart is being ripped apart, having lost his best friend only weeks ago can do that to your morale.

So you know who has it _easy_? Scott Lang. The ridiculous idiot who was the only one walking away without loss, back into a loving home with his daughter and girlfriend. Rhodey despises everything his existence represents, but he is also the one to take the high road as to not be petty about it and thus he simply continues with his exercises to take his mind off it.

 

[*]

 

When they meet up again, the heap of Avengers that was left, Scott Lang fell asleep at the table. Rhodey remembers people being hit in the Air Force for this kind of behaviour and grips his pen a little tighter as he watches Sam tap his shoulder to make him jolt awake. Scott Lang was so _soft_ to the core and Rhodey hates it as much as it fascinates him. It would forever be a mystery to him how someone could get through life so… _unscathed_.

Even after the conference is done, it just had to be Scott Lang to join him in the small kitchen they have set up in the compound, yawning as he clinks his hips against the counter where Rhodey is stood by the coffee machine, rubbing his eyes as Rhodey raises an eyebrow in turn.

“… Bad night?”

The other hero blinks at him as if he just asked him to decipher a mathematic formula, all the sleep momentarily escaping his eye as he straightens his back out and Rhodey _knows_ that reaction— his presence has always tended to intimidate people, so this was nothing new either (but sometimes he wishes it wasn’t so obvious at least).

“Oh, uh… No, just jet lag. New York and San Francisco aren’t exactly neighbours, haha.”

Even the nervous laughter was an indicator and Rhodey takes his coffee mug away from under the stream a bit more forcefully than necessary, spilling some onto his hand and it _burns_ , but he doesn’t care. He just nods with a tight-lipped expression as he decides to take it black, downing it before he leaves it in the sink, not looking back at Scott Lang a second time.

 

[*]

 

The next time they (have to) talk, it’s during a mission and Rhodey has always been good at keeping everything professional during work and not even Scott Lang can change that (not even when he appeared with one of his daughter’s stickers on his suit and Rhodey had to help Pepper put Morgan to sleep for the third time that week because she missed her dad so much). Instead he helps take the enemy down and afterwards, they shake hands— all professional.

“Mr. War Machine… Or uhm, Mr. Rhodes… Uh, I don’t know what I should call you, but do you hate me? I just wanna know if I like, did anything wrong?”

There are many layers to this simple string of words, the first one that no one has called him ‘ _Rhodes_ ’ in years (at least inside the Avengers) and also not War Machine— it installs a small smile on his face because Scott Lang probably didn’t know that the name had been changed by the government to Iron Patriot, but Rhodey hates that name and so he’ll let it slip. Assuming that Rhodey hated him was also not surprising— what _was_ surprising is that Scott Lang had the balls to actually directly ask him about it instead of living on in an assumption.

“No, I don’t hate you. You probably wouldn’t even be fun to hate.”

“… Hope has said that to me before too, even though I’m not sure what you both mean by that.”

This time Rhodey laughs and it’s genuine— which it hasn’t been in a very long time. He gives the other hero a hard pat on the shoulder before flying off again, his whole body feeling a tad lighter than it did when he woke up this morning (but he’s sure that’s the adrenaline from the fight, nothing else).

 

[*]

 

After that interaction, Rhodey chooses to abandon pettiness, even if it was just because it didn’t suit him. He begins to be the one to poke Scott awake during meetings and once he even made him coffee beforehand— the face he had worn was brilliant and the former soldier has to admit that it helps to give up your negative feelings every once in a while. Scott thanks him regardless and at least he has manners, so Rhodey will give credit where credit is due.

“I mostly thought you hated me when you blew away my taco with your epic landing, because no good guy I know would do that.”

Rhodey is chuckling again, because he did remember doing that (but under high stakes of pressure and in hindsight, he did feel a bit like an asshole about it), so he shakes his head and stacks the papers that had just been signed before giving Scott another look.

“Alright, I’ll replace your precious taco then. Come on.”

 

[*]

 

It felt a little strange hanging out outside of work like this, but Rhodey didn’t have anything else planned for the evening anyways. Spending the evening watching Scott Lang dig into tacos like it’s his last meal on death row was probably more entertaining than watching football in front of the TV. The pilot would never openly admit to having a favourite taco truck, but here they were in Queen’s, with Scott Lang standing in the middle of his little secret.

“These tacos are amazing!”

It comes out in-between mouthfuls of taco stuffing and Rhodey can’t supress a small smile as he nods in agreement, taking a languid bite of his own, staring back up at the sky littered with stars while leaning against a former factory building— almost a blast to the past.

“By the way, I never got to say this properly but… I’m sorry for your loss.”

Rhodey is almost certain that it was him who almost dropped his taco this time, because that one really pulled the rug right from under his feet. He sees that Scott is still holding two more tacos, but that contrite face he was wearing made it hard for him to be upset, snap or shut down. He takes another bite as he watches Scott avoid his eye almost and looks up at the stars again.

“It was a loss for us all. Earth lost its greatest hero, who just also happened to be my best friend.”

Scott is now looking him in the eye again and Rhodey doesn’t know it some of his bitterness actually leaked through his words, but when Scott just silently hands him one of the last two tacos he was holding, he just had to smile once more— it gave him the feeling that he should hang _less_ around Scott Lang because he’s pretty sure he’s starting to develop profound smile lines (which has never been an issue for him before, mind you).

 

[*]

“Mr. War Machine, I…—“

Rhodey can hear Bruce stifle a laugh behind him, typing something into his computer and Rhodey keeps a straight face even as Scott was trying to explain something, before waving his hand to signal him to pause for a minute.

“Lang, you know you can just call me Rhodey, right?”

“Oh. Oh, I thought because you never said anything, that…—“

“No, don’t worry about it. It’s completely fine.”

“Ah, alright… You can call me Scott then too, of course.”

The more Rhodey looks at Scott, the more he also feels like he’s reminded of a small puppy wandering through the world without any protection, even if that wasn’t true. Scott might appear dumb at first (especially when you first talk to him), but he has a fighter inside of him— which is something Rhodey would forever respect, because without him? The world would probably never have gotten half its population back.

The brief though crosses his mind, that if Scott had never retruned from the quantum realm, they probably would never have lost Tony. He would be happy with Pepper and his daughter, watching her grow up and learning what it means to be a father. But that’s another time-line, one none of them belong to and Rhodey forgets it as soon as Scott addresses him with his (nick)name for the first time.

“Do you want coffee too, Rhodey?”

The puppy dog eyes are on point though, is what he finds instead as he nods and gets up to follow the other man into the kitchen, mind already elsewhere again.

 

[*]

 

Their paths intertwine more and more, become sort of a journey together, the more time they spend with each other and he cannot believe he gave Scott Lang his phone number, even if it was inevitable at some point. Sam had commented that Scott was funny to bully the other day and Rhodey couldn’t have agreed more with anything. Sometimes he likes to think how Scott Lang managed to get through this world so easily, as kind and naïve as he was, but when Scott buys tacos for both of them again (for the third time that week) and Rhodey feels their hands brush against each other, he chooses just to be thankful instead— and considering where his tenacity had taken him in life, maybe he could use something _softer_ in his life for once.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this??? just a small thing i wrote for these two that randomly came to my mind (bc of the taco scene in endgame Mostly) and so let me know if you're as on board with this as i am? + my tumblr is @aortaxx if you wanna yell abt it over there because i need more fans of these two as well jdfhkjdhfkjd


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